When Kristina invited to me to participate in this blogathon honoring movie producer Val Lewton, my first instinct was to turn down the offer. The horror genre had never been a particular favorite of mine, and not only had I never seen a Val Lewton film, I had never even heard of him. But being someone who is always trying to expand my knowledge of film history, I decided to learn more about him and his movies before I made a decision.

The simple way I use to describe the type of movies I most like to watch would be those “about real people doing real things in normal settings,” and with names like Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Leopard Man, the movies produced by Val Lewton didn’t exactly sound like they’d fit that bill and sounded like they’d be too strange for my tastes.

But when I watched clips of a few of his movies, I realized that they were more like the type of movies I usually like than I ever would have guessed based on their titles alone. In fact, the one Val Lewton movie that I have watched so far, The Seventh Victim (1943), had “normal” looking scenes set in restaurants, hotels, apartments, and even a school where the main character, played by actress Kim Hunter, worked as a kindergarten teacher. Had I not known better, I never would have guessed it was considered horror at all.

When I read that the great director Martin Scorsese described his movies as “wonderfully inventive, beautifully poetic and deeply unsettling . . . some of the greatest treasures we have,” I took it as a sign that I should find out more about those movies and the people who made them, which is why I decided to do this biography of Val Lewton. Read More…